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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098275">Out of the silent planet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ukenceto/pseuds/ukenceto'>ukenceto</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Love beyond the bones [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gears of War (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Implied Mpreg, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Retrospective</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:29:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,661</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ukenceto/pseuds/ukenceto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fahz and Marcus having a late night conversation during JD's coma after the Hammer of Dawn incident. </p><p>Could be considered a branch of fate/somewhat different storyline set before Lost in the Ozone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Damon Baird/Marcus Fenix, Fahz Chutani/James "JD" Fenix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Love beyond the bones [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1025247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Out of the silent planet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So! Guess what book came in the mail.<br/>I read 40 pages and had to sit and write this fic. As much as I like Jason M. Hough's Gears novelizations so far, he practically wrote that Marcus visited JD once (!) while he was in the coma. </p><p>Oh sir, no sir. We don't do that. So, a bit of fix-it in my style... again. </p><p>Otherwise, he made Fahz stay by JD instead of Del which also gave me the big heartache, and more food for thought. Let's go then!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p>Fahz startled awake, looking up at him in the dark room. He’d barely opened his eyes, but his hand was already reaching for where his gun would be. Were they not in a hospital room, in the relative safety of New Ephyra.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus had to admit that he was impressed at Fahz’s reflexes. He’d been quiet enough to not wake the man, and yet his presence alone had seemed to alert him in some subconscious, instinctual way.</p><p> </p><p>Fahz was James’ age, but he already acted like a soldier who’d spent years on the battlefield.</p><p> </p><p>“Marcus?...” His voice was low, but not a whisper. After all, the only other person in the room couldn’t be roused so easily, from something as simple as a louder tone of voice.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t say anything, since Fahz’ questioning tone was largely rhetorical. Marcus watched him relax back into the chair next to the bed, not quite into the slumped position he’d been dozing off in. The glasses tucked into the collar of his shirt reflected a stray glimmer of light, but Fahz didn’t make a move to put them on. There was hardly a need for it, with the city as dark as it was. Conserving energy, since the link with the geothermal generators in the Jacinto Plateau had been severed, and everything relied on solar batteries now.</p><p> </p><p>“I haven’t seen you around James much. But it isn’t Del who is here now. It is you.” Marcus broke the silence, his tone mostly neutral. Still, he looked at the edge of the bed, where Fahz’ hand was. His fingers were interlaced with James’ where he held his hand.</p><p> </p><p>Fahz noticed his gaze, but didn’t make a move to let go. If anything, from what Marcus could read in the darkness of the room, his expression was almost daring him to try and challenge his right.</p><p> </p><p>Del had been coming to see James too, mostly early in the mornings, in the hours before dawnbreak. But left soon after, with only Marcus to witness his passing. He was usually weary and exhausted, if Marcus could guess, due to using the gym to vent out whatever conflicting emotions stirred in his mind since he’d learned the truth. That James had done what a Gear was taught to; that he’d followed orders even when it had meant they ended up costing human lives.</p><p> </p><p>“We served together, for a while. Before…” Fahz finally looked away, his expression betraying a sense of discomfort.</p><p> </p><p>“Before Settlement Two.” Marcus knew as much. He’d read the report, after all.</p><p> </p><p>“So you know.” Fahz didn’t say anything else, didn’t try to make any excuses.</p><p> </p><p>“I do.” Marcus looked away from him, a vice gripping his heart when his eyes landed on James’ still form. He could almost lie to himself that his son was simply sleeping. Only, if it wasn’t for the breathing tube and various machinery keeping him alive, the small diodes in the equipment around them blinking erratically. Painting James’ face in vague hues of green, blue, rust red like molted bruises.</p><p> </p><p>As if those he had sustained three weeks ago weren’t enough, having nearly just faded. But the skin whose real color he couldn’t see was what still betrayed the true extent of the damage James’s body had taken.</p><p> </p><p>The burns all over his arm, radiating down his back and face. Marcus had watched them heal while JD had been in the oxygen chamber, but even so it hadn’t been what it took for full recovery.</p><p> </p><p>“The doctors keep telling me the same thing.” Marcus’s tone was barely audible even to his own ears. But Fahz looked at him, having heard him nonetheless. Avoiding them had been the reason why Marcus began visiting at night; it’s not like he could sleep much through it anyways.</p><p> </p><p>“It ain’t happening. They’re wrong.” Fahz sounded agitated, his voice louder in the small space between them. “He just needs more time. You can’t heal from somethin’… something like this overnight.”</p><p> </p><p>Fahz was right. But James had been in a coma from the start, and he still needed the life support, even after weeks. The doctors had begun trying to prepare them for the worst case scenario.</p><p> </p><p>For a long while, Marcus simply fell quiet, still as a statue where he was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed.</p><p> </p><p>“He was silent the whole time, you know.” He began, the words coming through with a degree of uncertainty. It wasn’t a story he’d told often, or at all, thinking about it. But something made him want to say it now. “I carried him for nine months, and I didn’t even know.”</p><p> </p><p>He glimpsed back at Fahz, who was watching him, waiting.</p><p> </p><p>“I’d get sick, but think it was just the food, or the fact that we were stuck on a ship. I’d get headaches, and be in a bad mood, but that was nothing new.” Marcus gripped the sheet underneath his hand, absentmindedly twisting the soft fabric between his fingers. “I filled out some, but again, we were on a ship. Didn’t really have much to do. But not a single kick, nothing to tell me he was there at all. Right until the last possible moment, that is.”</p><p> </p><p>“But how did you… I mean, I’ve heard about it. The possibility, that is. But afterwards?” Fahz seemed genuinely curious, and Marcus had to admit it wasn’t the kid’s fault that the system, the COG was nearly as ignorant now about teaching anyone the details as it had been in the past.</p><p> </p><p>The knowledge had spread some, after all Marcus hadn’t been the first nor the last. And the Gorasni, they had never hidden it. So without the government and the army to mandate and control people’s bodies, the old knowledge had been found again.</p><p> </p><p>Grabbing his shirt, he tugged it free from his belt, lifting it just enough to reveal his abdomen. An old, deep scar crossed over the flesh, the indentations from the stitches still visible after all those years.</p><p> </p><p>Fahz hummed, raising his brows.</p><p> </p><p>“Makes sense, I guess.”</p><p> </p><p>“We had just defeated the Locust. Suppose the time, and having gotten through more crashes than not, finally got too much.” Marcus still remembered the agony which had spread through him, pain like no other he’d felt during his life. And he’d had plenty of hurt to compare it to. “We had to do a field surgery. Low on supplies, in the tropical heat of Azura. A Gorasni soldier was the only medic familiar with how to operate on a man, in such a case.”</p><p> </p><p>“I knew JD was born in the summer, but never knew the rest. Only a rumor or two.” Fahz didn’t seem bothered by idea. Nowadays rarely anyone was.</p><p> </p><p>But Marcus knew that change hadn’t come about quite so easily. He still recalled the worry, the fear of what prejudice might make people do. Even after their victory, when everyone was more united than they’d been in years.</p><p> </p><p>Some learned hatred was harder to uproot.</p><p> </p><p>“No one thought I’d make it. With almost no antibiotics, loss of blood and the possibility of infection. But we were fine. Both of us.” The last part came out barely a whisper, as he leaned over James, placing a kiss on his forehead.</p><p> </p><p>It had been so long ago, but he still remembered that frantic time as clearly as it had been yesterday. The love which had risen like a tidal wave within him when he’d first been stable enough to hold James in his arms. To name him and nurture him.  </p><p> </p><p>“We’ll wait for him.” He looked back at Fahz, the steel returning to his voice. “When he’s ready, he’ll wake up.”</p><p> </p><p>Marcus didn’t want to think of any other possibility. His nightmares brought up enough fears to the front of his mind; he didn’t need to let them overwhelm his waking life too.</p><p> </p><p>Waiting. That’s what they had to do. He refused to mourn James, no matter what prognosis the doctors gave. Odds and chances never worked quite so linearly, from what he’d seen.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you… uh, want this spot?” Fahz said after a while, seemingly realizing that Marcus planned to stay. “I should probably go get some sleep in an actual bed.”</p><p> </p><p>Yet, he seemed reluctant to let go of James’ hand. Marcus couldn’t mistake the look in his eyes, but it didn’t surprise him much. Fahz had barely left James’ side since the incident; he’d heard him talk to him, about odds and ends, stories from the war or even read to him from the couple of books which still sat on the bedside cabinet. The bookmarks on them were close to the end covers. But it wasn’t his place to comment.</p><p> </p><p>“You can stay, I don’t mind.” He said instead, since it mattered little where he’d sit. He’d woken a while back, the images of blood and fire still lingering behind his eyelids. He could almost smell the cloying reek of burning flesh, despite the cool air coming from an open window in the room.</p><p> </p><p>The city beyond was dark, barely a glimmer here and there to illuminate it. So far from the glow he used to see before the Swarm came about.</p><p> </p><p>It reminded him of the times in his childhood when they’d hide underground, the warnings for UIR planes and possible bombings spreading through town like a bushfire. The complete darkness meant to confuse the enemy.</p><p> </p><p>Since then, he’d come to wonder if hadn’t all been just the COG’s fearmongering campaign. From all he’d learned, that wouldn’t have surprised him anymore.</p><p> </p><p>The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable, as each man was lost in his thoughts. Fahz stayed, and when the sky began to lighten with the first hues of dawn, Marcus saw him doze off.</p><p> </p><p>The machines around kept their vigil, the constant, steady hum the reassurance Marcus couldn’t find elsewhere.</p><p> </p><p>They’d wait, as long as they had to.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p>
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